Peak oil debate

There have been several claims and counter-claims recently about the death of peak oil, as a result of new technologies and recent discoveries of shale gas and oil around the world, including here in Australia, but in the United States in particular.

In America there is talk of its resurgence as an economic superpower on the back of its shale gas reserves on the East Coast.

Shale oil is an alternative to conventional crude oil, but the extraction process is expensive and the environmental impacts are hotly contested—with the science only just seeming to catch up with the drilling already underway.

Here in Australia, the debate is centred on coal seam gas but the potential for these alternative energy resources to transform the global energy market is very significant indeed.

And the decisions we make on this in the coming years will be crucial.